BUMP!

    Fraser Island. Queensland. October 2004
      As a red blooded American (albeit city-bred Mamma's Boy) Male, I like trucks. I like driving off the pavement and bouncing around off-road in 4x4 mode on big rough tires. I like splashing through puddles after the rain and coming home covered in mud like a badge of courage. It's just fun. It's mostly a guy thing, I think. But there are a some women who enjoy it as well, even if they are content to simply come along for the ride.
      I'm also a terrible back seat driver. And whenever I find myself in a vehicle of almost any sort, I am much happier behind the wheel, in control -- or even out of control, but by my own methods -- rather then being a passenger.
      So when I got to Hervey Bay, I was not about to pass up the opportunity to embark on the "3-day/2-night self-drive 4x4 camping safari" of Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, home to over 230 freshwater sand lakes (more than 1/2 the number in the world), and happens to be just off the coast of Hervey Bay, where I just happened to be.
      With 13 people booked for the trip on that day, we were split into two groups of 6 & 7 each. I may be a little biased, but I feel we had the better group in our car. Dutch Jodie, English Jodie, English Jason, Canadian Over 50 With The Bodies And Attitudes Of Late 20 Year Olds Sharon and David, and myself (no descriptoin needed).
      We all went down to the garage/wherehouse in town where we were given camping gear [(tents, sleeping bags, a stove, various pots and pans, and an eskimo cooler (pronounced ESKIE)], a four-wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser with luggage and gear storage over-head, and and a speedy rundown of the do's and don'ts of Fraser Island. Don't drive too fast. Don't feed the Dingoes. Don't drive in the saltwater. Do speak up if the driver is making you uncomfortable. Do be careful. Don't miss the ferry back. Don't forget to put air back in the tires before driving on the paved roads. This is how to drive so you don't get stuck. This is what to do when you do get stuck. This is where we suggest you go. Now get to the ferry port so you don' t miss your boat!
      As anxious as I was to drive - and I had made it clear to the group that if they had no objections, I would be happy to drive the entire time - I wasn't that keen to drive out of the garage on the other side of the road and right into traffic directly after the safety/insurance briefing ("If you total the car - and that is easier to do then you might think - we will charge each of you double what a new one is worth, and then take your first born to use in a crash test video, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.") So, we elected Jason to drive us to the ferry terminal since he was English and surely familiar to this Driving On The Left Side Of The Road arrangement. Unfortunately, he was not completely familiar with loose, sloppy steering in a top heavy vehicle and gently drove us to our destination at about 2/3 the posted speed. But we got there safe and sound with plenty of time to spare. And that's what's important.
      My first turn behind the wheel came when it was time to back the truck (car, SUV, Ute...) onto the ferry. Let's review; Jason, the Englishman, is uncomfortable driving this vehicle forwards, so Chris, the American used to driving on the other side of the vehicle on the other side of the road, on the other side of the PLANET, gets to BACK this truck onto a free-floating and drifting BOAT! And not to toot my own horn, but I did a pretty fine job of it. I won't say I maybe managed it better than even some of the locals, but...well, TOOT!
      Once on Fraser Island, we stopped briefly to wash the salt water spray from the car and drop the tire pressure down to about 20 PSI. This makes the tires wider for better traction in the sand, but also serves to make our already topheavy vehicle even more unstable.
      I started out gingerly at first, driving up the sandy hill with luggage essentially on the roof, four passengers in the back, and a big-ass grin on my face. There are two kinds of road on Fraser Island, the trails through the forrest, and the "highway" (the beach at low tide). Whenever I drove down the highway on the beach, a little voice in the back of my head told me that I was doing something wrong. Because almost every beach I've ever been to has a strictly no-vehicles policy. But here, that's just the road. I was like a little kid, bouncing through the washouts and tearing along the hardpack just above the water line. I don't think that grin ever left my face the whole time I was behind the wheel.
      By the time we arrived at our first destination of Lake McKenzie, I was fairly certain this was a very capable ute, and Christened her "Sheila," the Aussie slang for girl. Sheila simply rolled gently along the one-track sandy roads, like a small boat slowly cruising through the harbour trying not to make a wake. Whenever the driver or front seat passenger noticed a divit or more jolting than usual bump in the road, we would yell out "BUMP!" to the four passengers in the back so that they could perhaps have a few milli-seconds of warning before being tossed around like kernels in a popcorn kettle. Sometimes we were too late, and the "BUMP!" would come just after the tooth-loosening jolt. At first that got a laugh.
      Lake McKenzie is a beautiful freshwater lake lapping up against a white silica-sand beach which slopes gently out for about 20 meters and then drops to unseen depths, making the crystal clear lakewater appear black and ominous. I swam out about 1/4 of the way across to pose for a photo, and then noticed that English Jodie had swum out to join me. We swam on a bit further, and then realized that we were suddenly nearly halfway across, and only had enough energy to swim one more half. Naturally, we continued on. The far shore turned out to be one of those destinations that never seem to get any closer, no matter how far you think you've swum. And WHERE did that current come from?! We were on a LAKE! We finally made it across, but I collapsed on the beach until I had caught my breath while Jodie non-chalantly informed me that she used to swim for her university team, and is now a PE teacher. No wonder she was standing over me ready to swim back across again. I convinced her that it would be safer if we walked around the side of the lake back to where we had started from on the other side.
      Our next stop wsa Central Station. A tropical rainforrest boardwalk in the middle of all sand island. For while the floor of the island is sand, right down to it's snady core, it is heavily forrested and thick with trees. The boardwalk meandered along through these trees as it followed a clear stream snaking through through palm trees, hanging vines, and tall grand trees of the forresty/jungle type.
      The Dingoes on Fraser Island are becoming an increasing problem. They look like poor hungry puppy dogs, when in fact they are wild animals, like a coyote or a wolf, or...or...an Elephant. The problem is that they're no longer afraid of humans, and thus creep into the camps late at night and eat all the food that's not secured in a vehicle, and kidnap any unattended babies, and stuff like that. The solution the Rangers have come up with is to tell you (should you see one) to yell "DINGO!" and throw a heavy stick or a rock at them. The hope is that they will begin to associate humans and "DINGO!" with pain and decide to stay away. It was made clear to us that this method woul dhave no affect if you didn't actually inflict pain on the dingo. So, if you scream out "DINGO!" and throw a stick that flies three feet over its head, they won't learn a thing.
      We camped on the beach that night with a rise of small sand dunes seperating our camp from the main highway/beach. We noticed a few dingoes trotting past our camp just beyond the light of our campfire, but the only thing to visit us that night was a Huntsman spider. We were all sitting around letting our dinner digest when it slowly crawled over the top of our tarpaulin rain guard hanging over the tents and began its slow journey down towards our feet. In a flash, we all had our cameras out and were surrounding the poor thing taking photos and gawking at it shamelessly, thinking it was the coolest thing ever. But gradually, we lost interest and went back to our previous positions of dinner digestion and beer. Or possibly after dinner Scotch by that time. A few minutes later, I noticed that no one was tracking the spider anymore (which, by the way, is about the size and shape of a Tarantula, and almost as fuzzy). We all quickly scanned the area but there was no sign of it anywhere. So we assumed it must have gotten camera shy and gone back from whence he had come. It wasn't until the next night that we learned that one of their defining characteristics is that they jump. They jump a great distance. Probably better we didn't know this at the time, or we may not have slept as well as we did.
      "Who's driving?" I asked, with the keys in my hand. "ME? OK, if you insist." (BUMP!) The next day promised more of the same, with our first stop being Eli Creek (dubbed Hangover Creek but past campers). A cool, refreshing freshwater stream that ran down from the forrest and into the ocean. Water so clear that if you didn't look closely at the shallow areas, you could easily mistake it for a dry riverbed. After an hour or so, we moved up the coast to the local shipwreck on the beach (there seem to be quite a few shipwrecks up and down the coast of Queensland), and then, farther up the beach/highway to a spot called Indian Head, which as far as I could tell, was the only rocky point on the island. We hiked up to the lookout to have a look...down, and were treated to a visit from a few turtles in the midst of their mating season, a ray of some kind, a small school of dolphins in the distance, and off on the horizon, a few whales swimming past. It was as if a select group of sealife got together and said "OK guys, they're here. It's time!" And then came by to say hello to us before going on about their business.
      At the "Champagne Pools" (tidal pools that resemble Champagne when the waves flow over the top) I introduced the group to Peanut Butter and Nutella sandwiches for lunch. In their experience, PB was only a spread, to be used on toast for breakfast, or on its own between bread for lunch. This concept of PB and...anything was foreign to them. They kept offering me the jar of peanut butter for breakfast (since I was the one who bought it), and I kept trying to explain to them that is was clearly a lunching item and not something that one could dive right into first thing in the morning. But I got them to enjoy their PB&N sandwiches at lunchtime, and we all had a short nap before on the beach before heading off through the sandy trails (BUMP!) which wound through the sandy forrest on the giant sand dune island to our campsite on the beach where our group of 6 and the other group of 7, along with the third group of 2 spent the evening sharing stories of travel and adventure over a few beers, a few boxes of wine (no glass bottles reccomended in the bumpy utes), and Dave's bottle of Scotch (he kept it well wrapped in about 3 towels to prevent breakage) until the evening faded and the night seemed to get shorter and shorter.
      On our final day on Fraser Island, our first stop was Lake Waby. Another freshwater lake (this one inhabited by catfish), but this time with a thick forrest on one side, and steep sand dunes on the other. Jason and I spent the majority of our time running up the dunes and throwing ourselves down them, trying to stay on our feet running faster and faster, until we ended up rolling head over heels into the water below like a couple of kids. Which I will always be. Just a big kid. Then we found a steeper dune around the corner and did the same thing all over again. Like a couple of older kids.
      Then Dave and I took a treck across the backside of the bigger dune to its highest peak far in the distance to pose for a photo. Just like that one in Morocco, I thought. But this time, I didn't write my name in the sand.
      One more stop at Lake McKenzie because it really is the best spot on the island (and we didn't feel we had enough time there the first day), and we left for the ferry port. With a two hour window, I got us there in 25 minutes. Alive. And I only went the wrong way around the roundabout one time. And I only did that because there were no other cars around to follow. And no one would have noticed if English Jodie hadn't spoken up. In spite of this, the group nominated me to back the car OFF the ferry this time and drive us through town and back to the garage (soliciting only one honk from an angry motorist when I apparently cut him off at another roundabout) where we unloaded our camping gear, and I drove us back to the hostel where we had a pizza party and went to bed early. My final thought of the day was that the rest of Australia has a lot to live up to after the past three day.

"Bless not only the road, but the bumps on the road. They are all part of the higher journey."
--Julia Cameron

Props to my Peeps, and Peace on the Mothership,
Chris Dwan

thedwanimal@hotmail.com